Friday, November 07, 2008

Have been a bit under the weather lately - twisted my back. Will get better when the weather dries up. Also, a couple very interesting assignment topics:

American History - on the notion of Social Darwinism and how industrialists subscribed to that. Also, how it helped in molding what we consider the "American Dream" for immigrants, Americans in the lower classes.

Western Civilization - a 'special assignment.' We had to either do a book report, do a critique of a couple assigned films, go to a classical music concert and describe that, or go to an art museum and describe a few works we saw there. I chose the last option, and not just because I was at the Louvre last week, either. Had for a while been tossing around the idea for a little presentation outlining Hellenistic influence on art in Persia

This could easily have been done based on both Harvard's and the MFA's holdings, but, well, since I had some good pictures from France, I figured what the heck.

Had another assignment due on Tuesday for Western Civilization - got it handed in, but wasn't very pleased about it (and said so). This was regarding elements of Roman Civilization that disappeared and were preserved in the Germanic kingdoms that filled the power vacuum after the collapse of the Western sector of the old empire. Not too difficult, but my brain kind of froze up with the family stupidity going on and I began fixating on the similarities/differences between Burgundian Law and Hammurabi's Code (namely social stratification and the idea of fixing a monetary value on people).

Was more than a little dazzled by this. Given its significance, (Hammurabi's Code being one of the bases of Western Law and all), was surprised to see the hall where it's displayed nearly empty.